Junior Member
Hi there,
I have an idea on how Centurion could be made more viable, without making him completely overpowered against weaker players.
Centurion currently suffers from an issue where his strength grows exponentially the less skilled his enemy is, but he has almost zero viable options against very high level players. I have some ideas that would rebalance him, making more of his moveset viable, and nerfing his reliance on wall throws for damage output, while making him less punishing per mistake made by the enemy, to help with his "noob stomping" capabilities somewhat
Suggested changes:
- Introduce a middle level of charged heavy. This middle level of charged heavy would guarantee an uncharged punch followup, and it would be the guaranteed punish after a light attack parry and a wall throw. This would put his damage output in those situations at 40 with good stamina drain, putting him more in line with other characters.
- To compliment the middle level charged heavy, the fully charged version would need some changes too. It would still pin and guarantee a fully charged punch on hit, however, if it was blocked, a followup uncharged punch would be very, very hard to dodge (this could be done by slightly increasing the attack's block stun)
- To balance this buff out, it would take 100 MS longer to fully charge the first heavy, making it even more susceptible to interruptions.
-The second charged heavy in a chain really needs to be adjusted to have a 200 MS gap inbetween the latest feint timing and the impact of the attack instead of the current 300, so it's not ridiculously easy to react to, and actually exists as a mixup.
- Also, pins should go through armor, this is a serious issue against some characters, and it also makes Gladiator's deflect absolutely useless against certain characters and attacks, and would be a real consistency change for these two characters. (it could still be armored by Revenge armor, much like how bashes behave)
These changes would make Centurion's heavy mixups more viable, and would encourage enemies to be more agressive against them, and attempt parries or interruptions, while at the same time lowering the likely damage output, without making Centurion lose his playstyle and identity.
To compliment these changes, other changes can be done, as well as a few quality of life adjustments that would help him immensely in certain situations:
The kick: As it is right now, Centurion's kick is very reactable (on PC), and unpunishable by many characters (even dangerous to try and punish), which makes it a fairly boring option for both sides. To improve on this, several things could be done.
- First, the kick should be sped up (by 100 MS?) so it's not fully reactable and is more in line with other simmilar attacks, but it would have a recovery incease of 100 MS as well, making it punishable by any character, IF the Centurion doesn't perform a heavy attack after missing it.
- To balance this out, the kick should be considered a chain starter, and the second light attack in a chain nerfed from 15 damage to 13 or 12, while also reducing the stamina damage of the kick by 5 or 10 so it can't permanently keep people out of stamina. An increase to stamina cost would also be fine.
Other changes:
- Centurion's zone attack is currently absolutely useless in combat unless used as an attempted finishing move, due to it being unfeintable, and it's worse at clearing minions than simple locked on side lights.
To make it more usable, it should be soft feintable into a guard break inbetween all 3 hits, but not normally feintable, so there is still a risk of getting hit by a light attack or an early heavy attack if the enemy predicts you will soft feint the hit. To make it better at clearing minions, it should step forward more per swing.
- His light/light/light chain is very useless against pretty much everyone at this point, making the second light 400 MS (which wouldn't be too unreasonable since its damage has been nerfed to balance out the kick.
- Centurion has one extremely severe issue that plagues him in gank situations in 4v4 or 2v2 game modes, that being Eagle's Talon. Every time he parries someone to the ground with the Revenge activation autoparry, no matter who you are locked on to, he will do an Eagle's Talon on a downed enemy, making him VERY vulnerable to just getting beaten up for activating revenge. This is made even worse by having it sometimes lock onto enemies behind Centurion, and forcing him to do a weird 180 degree U turn jump, and hitting nothing. This can be fixed by forcing the Eagle's Talon to only trigger on a forward dash heavy input.
With all this implemented, Centurion would have many dangerous options, and still feel simmilar as a character, without relying so heavily on wall throws and the infamous cutscene for any kind of viability at high level, and would make him less punishing for newer or weaker players.
Junior Member
As a further refinement, I would also increase the second heavy's full charge windup by 100 MS, and this secondary charge level would be a window of either 200 or 300 MS, with both an audio and visual queue when it's reached
Additionally, I would make the jab followup guaranteed on landing the forward dash armored jump heavy, it's already a very slow attack and even when done right, it usually ends up on the short end of a trade because of its damage and Centurion's low health
Member
The fix is all plane and simple just 1 thing:
Fix badpingers lag adavatage!
Nat has to be reworked;
Ping below 30 = green NAT
Ping between 30 - 60: yellow NAT
Ping above 60: Red NAT
Players must not allow to join players with another NAT.
Centurion is the best example he can just feint heavy into GB if you have a ping 30+ worse than yours and you can not block, counter GB or parry him.
Above that he gains a lag advantage when he GBs, dodges and attacks you.
At the moment lag & light spam is the way to win!
Junior Member
Do you even know what NAT is? lol, anyway, Centurion is probably one of the worst characters to use as an example of lag issues, especially now with mr Orochi having a triple 400 MS light chain, and characters like Berserker or Aramusha... Btw, why would a ping slightly higher than 30 make you not be able to block a 600 MS attack? That's kind of ridiculously slow compared to many other attacks in the game...
